Disclaimer: This story is for fun only, and no profit is made. At all. Ever. In fact, it's lost. For many reasons, most of them include me ignoring my school work which I pay a lot for. Whoops.
Abomination of Desolation
It was when a person felt that they had all the time in the world to get something done that nothing got done, Ron finally decided. Though there were many books and papers strewn around his cell, the odd bottle of ink along with some fountain pens, there was no discernable dent in the amount of work that he had to do. Although, I don't really know how much time I have left. It really wouldn't hurt to start some of this up again. Yet he found he couldn't drum up the will to actually work some more. It was hard when you didn't really know when you would die and what insignificant act would hasten the process.
Anything but this life. Anywhere but here. Anytime but now. Absolutely anything
It was a bitter thought. But it was hard to escape the reality that he lived in. It had been easier at the beginning, denying what had happened to him by burying himself in the work that his captors had forced upon him. At first, he was a little bewildered at the thought that someone wanted whatever limited skills that he had. Ron was smart enough to realize that he wasn't smart enough for the work that he had been given to do. He'd protested, but all that was said had boiled down to, "Learn, or die." It had seemingly been a simple choice at the time.
But that simple choice was rather hard to put into practice. Where he'd struggled through the most basic texts during Hogwarts, the materials that they were giving him now were completely over his head. And this time he didn't have a Hermione stashed away to do all the hard work for him. Ron found that he rather regretted not doing the work himself during his time in school, but there was little to be done about it now.
Eventually he did learn all that he needed to know to start on the experiments that were required of him. But when he gained that knowledge, he found that he was unable to actually perform the experiments. In many ways, he was rather grateful for it meant that he didn't have to actually test them on human beings for experimental purposes, and yet in others he was secretly disappointed for he had done the leg work and wanted to be able to figure out what the results were to be on his own. This was not to be, however, and rightly so on the view of the jailers. Who would give a prisoner of war the ability to let himself go?
Over time, he gained his jailers rather grudging…well, if not respect, than something close to it. Tolerance would probably be the best way to put it. They weren't friends and could never be given the situation, but they did get along well enough. Ron allowed them to do things like watching the old TV without ever ratting on them to their boss whenever he deemed to visit, and for his silence they brought him random contraband. It was mostly candy or an unsanctioned book or two, maybe a fancy new pen, or a decent meal every once and a while. Bits of news from the Muggle world (never the Wizarding world because that could prove dangerous), various things like that would be given to him while Ron would gulp them down like a starving man at a feast.
And yet, over time, Ron began to feel restless. When he finally began to pull his head out of his work, he realized that he couldn't stick it back in. He was a little disgruntled to realize that he had absolutely no idea how long he'd been kept prisoner. He was fairly sure the time frame spanned years, maybe even a decade, if his hair was to be believed, for he had only managed to get it cut once since he'd been placed in the jail, and now it was back down to his butt, the red locks braided as neatly as possible to make sitting a bit more comfortable. At least he got to shave everyday, and he was pathetically grateful for the rather nice razors that they gave him to shave with. Dealing with long hair and a beard would have been hell—he didn't know how Dumbledore put up with it for so long. Then again, Dumbledore had had his freedom to do just about whatever he wanted, so a beard for him wouldn't have been too difficult.
Ron glanced around his tiny cell again. He thought it looked a bit like what he fancied Professor Snape's work office to be like, except without random potion experiments littering the long tables, standing up amongst the other debris of papers and books like castle spires. But the walls were the same, roughly hewn stone blocks that were lightly mildewing. A single porcelain sink, gleaming in the dull light, with some soap, a toothbrush and a small razor kit. A little curtained off area where he could shower in relative privacy (not that it really mattered, as he had lost his body-shyness long ago). Crude long tables with rough wood that made it hard to write neatly on (and prompting him to ask for a smallish polished piece of wood to put underneath his paper as he was writing) taking up the front right hand corner of his cell. Dark book shelves of all shapes and sizes crammed into every available space and filled with varying objects, with a small cot situated to the back of the cell underneath a teeny tiny barred window that never let in enough light or air.
Okie. Yeah, will this ever be finished? Maybe, maybe not. We'll see if the inspiration hits at any point. In any case, I hoped you enjoyed what little I had!